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"What happened?"

"He wanted me to stop traveling." She picks at the crust of her bread. "Said I was running from something. That all the moving around was avoidance."

"Was it?"

Her eyes snap to mine. Sharp. Not angry, but close. "I don't run from things. I run toward them. There's a difference between a woman who's lost and a woman who's looking."

The conviction in her voice vibrates through the kitchen. She believes it. Completely. Whether it's true or not is a different question, but she believes it, and that belief gives her a fire I can see in her jaw, her shoulders, her hands gripping the edge of the table.

Gorgeous. She's absolutely gorgeous when she's certain about something.

"Okay," I say.

"Okay what?"

"Okay, you're not running. You're looking." I hold her gaze. "What are you looking for?"

Her lips part. No answer comes. For the first time since I met her, Poppy Marsh doesn't have a response ready. The woman who talked back while wearing a piece of pumpkin as clothing is sitting in my kitchen with nothing to say.

The moment stretches. My pulse is doing something it hasn't done since I was twenty-five, and I'm too old to pretend I don't recognize what it means.

"I need to check the cider press," I say, standing. "You coming?"

The cider press is in the barn, back corner, behind the apple crates. An old cast iron hand-crank model my grandfather bought in the seventies. Still works. Still makes the best cider I've ever had, not that I'd say that to anyone.

Poppy photographs it from three angles before she touches it. Then she runs her fingers along the crank handle, the iron frame, the press plate.

"This is beautiful," she says. "How old?"

"Older than me."

"Can I see it work?"

Grabbing a crate of Winesaps from the stack, I dump a dozen into the hopper. The crank takes force. Both hands, shoulder into it, steady pressure. Juice runs through the grate into the catch basin, clear and amber. The barn fills with the smell. Apples and cold metal.

"Try," I say, stepping back.

She takes the handle. Cranks. Gets about a quarter turn before the resistance catches her. Her arms flex, her jaw sets, her whole body leans into it.

"Put your weight behind it," I say. "Not your arms."

"I am putting my weight behind it."

"You're muscling it. Here." Stepping behind her, my hands close over hers on the handle. Both of us gripping the crank. My chest against her back, arms around her, her body between mine and the press.

We push together. The crank turns. Apples crush. Juice flows.

She smells like cumin. From the empanadas this morning. Cumin and something warm underneath that's just her.

Another turn. My chin is close to her temple. Her curls brush my jaw. She leans back, just barely, her spine softening against my chest.

The crank stops. Neither of us moves it.

"Deck." Her voice is low. Quiet.

"Yeah."

"Your hands are still on mine."